Author Archives: Rusty Rueff

About Rusty Rueff

Rusty Rueff, author of purposed worKING. Rusty Rueff is the former Chairman Emeritus of The GRAMMY Foundation in Los Angeles. He most recently completed the successful 16 month leadership role as Coordinating National Co-Chair for Technology for Obama (T4O) for the reelection of President Obama and ten-years of Board service and President of the Board of Trustees of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Corporately, most recently Rueff was the Chief Executive Officer at SNOCAP, Inc. until the acquisition of the company by imeem, Inc. in April 2008. Before joining SNOCAP in 2005, he was Executive Vice President of Human Resources at Electronic Arts (EA) from 1998 until 2005. He was also with the PepsiCo companies for more than ten years, with the Pratt & Whitney division of United Technologies for two years, and in commercial radio as an on-air personality for six years. Rusty holds an M.S. in counseling and a B.A. in radio and television from Purdue University. In 2003 he was named a distinguished Purdue alumnus, and he and his wife, Patti, are the named benefactors of Purdue’s Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts. He is a corporate director of Glassdoor.com and runcoach. He is the co-founder and Executive Committee Member of T4A.org, serves on the Founding Circle of The Centrist Project and a founding Board Member of The GRAMMY Music Education Coalition. He is also the co-author of the book Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business. Rusty and his wife, Patti, reside in Hillsborough, CA and Charlestown, R.I.

day 1021: T.H.I.N.K – Part Three: Inspiring

purposed worKING No Comments

In your majesty, ride out to victory, defending truth, humility, and justice. Go forth to perform awe-inspiring deeds!

Last week was filled with news about what happens when an email or communication is discovered that turns out to reveal actions and behaviors that are deceptive, dishonest and unseemly. It’s worth taking a few Purposed worKING posts to remind ourselves of how we should conduct ourselves with electronic communication.  There are no secrets in the digital age and so we must T.H.I.N.K. before we act, write or speak.

Today, I ask you to take on an exercise.  It’s the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and tomorrow is a day off, and maybe even the beginning of a four day weekend for some.  For everyone, tomorrow will be a day of thanks and a time to reflect and consider what it is that we can be thankful for and many will spend that time with friends and family.  Before we do so though, let’s look back at the communications that we had yesterday and determine how much of it was “Inspiring“.  Just take a quick scroll through your sent emails and tally up what percentage of them would have left the person on the other end of the communication feeling inspired to make the most of their day and tasks at hand.  If you aren’t an email person, think about your texts, tweets or posts on social media. You know, if we can’t find a way to make our messages inspiring to others, then we might want to consider not sending them. When we aren’t inspiring, we are being a bummer to someone else. It’s so easy in today’s world to be a naysayer, a cynic, or one who criticizes and predicts the rainy and cloudy day.  Sure, the weather caster who predicts rain everyday will be right some percentage of the time, but she/he won’t be the person who we will want to come be the emcee at our charitable event or host a party, etc.  No one likes people who are down in the dumps other than others who are also that way.  Inspiring others is not hard if we just focus on doing so.  How was that audit of yesterday’s communication?  If it’s not at least some large percentage of inspiration then it’s time to re-T.H.I.N.K. how we are communicating.

God wants us to be inspirational and always inspiring to others.  That is because that is what He has done and will always do for this world.  Those things that come from God are inspiring.  Sometimes, as David wrote, they are “awe-inspiring”.  Alright, so let’s double down on inspiration today and carry that into our Thanksgiving break.  We will be surrounded by those that are the closest to us, let’s be sure that we don’t miss this opportunity to be inspirational and leave that time with all of us being better and stronger than we arrived.  This is the path of God and one that we are to walk along!

Happy Thanksgiving – On Monday we carry on with Part Four of  “T.H.I.N.K”

Reference: Psalm 45: 3-5 (New Living Translation)